Jermaine Moore lost his New Orleans home in Hurricane Katrina and relocated to Houston with only an overnight bag and his truck. He returned to survey the damage and encountered an eerie silence that made him question returning. Many displaced residents similarly found temporary refuge in Texas and eventually settled long-term, altering Houston's communities over two decades. Moore met his wife in Houston and seeks barbers from New Orleans to manage his natural hair texture. John "Speedy" Riddle arrived at 15, began cutting hair about a decade later, and never returned after his family home flooded. Riddle was among as many as 6,000 New Orleans students who came to the Houston Independent School District after Katrina.
"New Orleans barbers cut different," Moore said. "Our hair texture is different. This is not processed, this is my mother. But everybody can't cut it."
"Yeah, saw my damn house on the news watched everything float away, and looking down at that overnight bag, realizing that, and my truck outside, that's all I got left," Moore said.
"You know what it's like to stand in an American city and hear not a bird chirp, not a cricket you hear nothing," Moore said. "And you start to wonder, can I live here?"
"I would have never got to live the life I've experienced up to 35 years old if it wouldn't have been for Katrina," Riddle said.
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